Just a reminder, as the “DRM is dead” refrain echoes, that this isue is by no means gone. Netflix has been offering streaming movies to the PC for some time now, and just recently made news by offering a set-top box for watching your Netflix streams directly on a TV. But they still don’t have streaming for Mac, or for Firefox on Windows. Guess why:

A key issue for delivering movies online is that the studios require use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect titles. And that’s our holdup for the Mac - there’s not yet a studio-sanctioned, publicly-available Mac DRM solution (Apple doesn’t license theirs). I can promise you that, when an approved solution becomes available for the Mac, we’ll be there. I’ll also say that Silverlight 1.1 looks like a promising candidate - but that its DRM isn’t likely to be fully available until 2008.

That’s from Steve, a project manager for Netflix’s “instant watching” streaming project, on their community blog. In this matter-of-fact post you can see both the control impulse of DRM, the way it absolutely interferes with technical innovation, and the way it gets played in the intra-industry competition around platforms.

So… Silverlight. Here’s the promo for the new “cross-browser, cross-platform, cross-device plug-in” for Microsoft. I love corporate-speak. Of course, you have to download the plug-in to see the promo for it. What it will show you is that Microsoft still loves Powerpoint, and maybe Minority Report. But it aspires to be a one-stop vehicle for high-def online video, streaming, interactive presentations, etc etc. While its free, it looks like Microsoft is aiming to offer streaming video in a “cloud computing” form, where small scale providers can let Microsoft host and stream their videos, for a fee or paired with advertising. Oh, and

Silverlight will support digital rights management (DRM) built on the recently announced Microsoft PlayReady content access technology on Windows-based computers and Macintosh computers.

So… PlayReady, Microsoft’s new DRM system. As I argued in Wired Shut, Microsoft makes little pretense about the fact that the “content protection” at work here is not protection from piracy, but protection of a commercial transaction:

Microsoft PlayReady technology provides the premier platform for applying business models to the distribution and use of digital content.

Microsoft PlayReady supports a wide range of business models for digital content providers, including:

• Subscription: Provide access to an entire catalog of content in exchange for a recurring fee.
• Purchase: Offer content for purchase and download.
• Pay Per View: Provide pay-per-view choices for all content types.
• Rental: Enable rental scenarios with time-based licenses.
• Gifting: Allows one person to pay another person’s fees for a service or its content.

Microsoft PlayReady supports many different options for distributing content:

• Basic and progressive downloads: Content can play while downloading.
• Streaming: Content can be streamed to devices.
• Sideloading: Sync content from a PC to a mobile device supporting Microsoft PlayReady.
• Direct License Acquistion Over-The-Air: Content and license can be provided direct to a mobile handset over wireless networks.
• Super-distribution: Content sent over user-to-user distribution channels such as e-mail, messaging service (MMS), ad hoc WiFi networks, Bluetooth, and so forth can be monetized by providers.

Oh, and just as a dead giveaway for the way Microsoft think copyright works — and so that I can instantly violate their legal demands with my own dead giveaway — the PlayReady White Paper [PDF], available online, includes this statement in its Legal Notice:

Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

(Oops.)

I think this is exactly the kind of slipperiness between businesses and businesses models that is keeping up the demand for DRM, even when it seems increasingly unwieldy, is arguably too expensive for its own good, and disliked by users. Netflix wants to serve up streaming movies, partner with Windows (both because they want to first reach the bulk of users and because Microsoft wants to play chaperone to protected media content), can’t as easily serve Apple users because Apple has chosen to build its business model on linking its content delivery and its platform, and then finds itself turning to a plug-in format, developed by Microsoft, that has the heft to reach Mac and PC alike, but with its requisite host of DRM limits built in, to smooth a set of commercial transactions that all the businesses involved appreciate. Q.E.DRM.